The Most Dreadful Thing

Esmerelda Lopez stares at the hand holding her own as it leads her onto the playground. Any onlookers would identify the look as one of amazement and elation.

The day is a nice one, pleasantly warm with an occasional breeze that hints at the cool fall to come yet doesn’t warrant long-sleeves. The sky is a brilliant shade of blue mapped with puffy clouds. The sun is shining but not blazing like it was just yesterday; Virginia is experiencing its between-seasons-season where the weather can’t quite decide whether it wants to tan by the swimming pool with an ice-cold lemonade or pick perfectly plump pumpkins for carving. Perfectly fine weather: most anyone would nod their head in agreement after stepping outside to check. 

The owner of the hand pulling Esme’s is Maddy Stevens. Maddy is a pretty girl with many friends, a popular girl of the third grade. One strand of her long pretty hair has received a turquoise beach wrap, her ears are double pierced, and she is undoubtedly the epitome of third-grade swank. 

Esme is particularly envious of Maddy’s hair. Esme’s mother has always kept her hair awkwardly short in a rounded sort of way; it is the way all the little Lopez girls wear their hair, Mrs. Lopez tells her. Mrs. Lopez herself wore her hair like this as a little girl, and her mother, and her mother before her. Besides, what’s it matter how pretty a nine year old girl keeps her hair? A nine year old girl ought not be in the business of attracting anybody.

Esme was somewhat starstruck when, as they were lining up, Maddy approached Esme and asked if she’d like to play with her (actually she’d said ‘us’, referring to herself as well as her group of friends) at recess. Esme, initially disbelieving (then inwardly ecstatic), replied ‘sure’, all the while thinking: Yes! Yes! Yes! (Esme is relatively new to town, having just moved to Thorburn Falls over the recent summer, and therefore has had limited time and opportunity to make friends.)

Now Maddy is pulling her towards the jungle gym, which consists of a collage of different playground structures: slides, climbing walls, monkey bars, something like a watchtower with four beams holding up a pyramid-like roof. Maddy and Esme (followed by Maddy’s three friends, Anna, Grace, and Rachel) scramble up the jungle gym with breathless determination.

If the jungle gym were a castle, Maddy would be its queen. Esme observes that by some unspoken rule when Maddy and her friends mount it, the jungle gym belongs to them; it is as if it has been claimed. No other children endeavor to make use of its amenities. 

“We’re going to play truth or dare,” Maddy tells Esme. “Have you played before?”

Esme shakes her head; her hair bounces vivaciously when she does this.

“If you get truth, you get asked a question and you have to tell the truth. If you get dare, you get dared to do something, like a challenge, and you have to do it. The way we play, we play rock-paper-scissors first. If you win, you get truth. If you lose, you get dared. I always start, and I get to pick who goes next, and then they pick who goes next. Get it?”

Esme nods. Truthfully she wishes Maddy would go over the rules one more time, but she doesn’t want to seem like a dummy.

Maddy gets one of her friends, a girl with lots of tiny braids in her hair named Anna, to play rock-paper-scissors with her. Maddy loses, Anna’s paper covering her rock, and Anna dares her to go up to Charlie Harmen and give him a kiss on the cheek. Maddy shrugs and smiles. 

They all watch from the jungle gym, the air a mixture of giggles and anticipation, as Maddy runs across the playground to the square of pavement where Charlie is playing basketball with a handful of boys. She runs up behind him and taps him on the shoulder, and when he turns to see who's there she stands up on her tippy toes and kisses him on the cheek. Then she sprints back towards the jungle gym, leaving Charlie pink-cheeked and at the unforgiving mercy of nine-year-old boys. 

“I can’t believe you did that!” Anna exclaims when Maddy has returned.

“What was it like?” Grace whispers.

Maddy shrugs. “Fine, I guess. He smelled sweaty.” They all snicker at this. Then Maddy scans the group of girls. “Hmm. Anna, you’re next.”

They play rock-paper-scissors and Anna wins, beating Maddy’s finger scissors with a rock-fist.

“Gimme a second,” Maddie says and squeezes her eyes shut. When she opens them again they’re sparkling with mischief. “Alright. What’s a secret you’ve never told anybody?”

Anna taps her lip thoughtfully. Then she leans in and whispers something into Maddy’s ear. Maddy’s eyes widen. “Did you get drunk?” Maddy exclaims loudly.

“Maddy!” Anna hisses. “Everybody’ll hear you.” Then they’re both giggling, because everything is tremendously funny when you’re trying to be quiet about it.

“What was it?” Rachel demands.

“Yeah. You have to tell us. It’s not fair if you only tell Maddy. You can’t leave people out,” Grace remarks, crossing her arms.

Maddy and Anna share a glance. After a few seconds, Anna lets up. “Okay, I’ll tell you. Once, when my mom and dad weren’t home and my older brother was babysitting me, I found a can of their alcohol in the back of the fridge—”

“You drank it?” Grace exclaims incredulously. 

Anna nods, and she and Maddy giggle some more, leaning into one another as they do so. 

“Did you get drunk?” Rachel asks.

“What did it taste like?” Grace wants to know. 

“I think so,” Anna says. “But I only took a sip, because it was really gross and I couldn’t take another. I thought it would taste like soda, but it was like…like…” she wrinkles her nose at the recollection. “It didn’t taste like you’re supposed to drink it. It tasted like a drink gone rotten, like fruit.”

All the girls are giggling again. “I can’t believe you got drunk!” Maddy exclaims, and Anna hushes her and they giggle harder. 

“Okay,” Maddy says when the giggling has simmered down to occasional snickers. “Who’s next?” She looks at Esme when she says it, as if she already knows who Anna will pick.

“Esme,” Anna says.

Esme blinks. She’s been giggling along with the rest of them, mostly just following along. She’s surprised to be included in what's going on, as if she’s been observing all of this from the outside looking in. She almost feels caught, as if she had been eavesdropping. “Yes?”

“Rock paper scissors,” Anna reminds her, and they face each other with fists that bear the fate of the universe. 

For whatever reason Esme closes her eyes as she throws out a rock. When she opens them, she sees Anna wielding a palm of paper. It takes Esme a moment to realize she has lost, and that this means she will be dared.

“Okay. Let me think of a good one,” Anna says. Anna, Maddy, Grace, and Rachel all put their heads together. They didn’t do this the two other times, but Esme figures they’re just trying to think up a really good one. When they draw away from one another, they smile at Esme. 

“Climb to the top of the tower,” Anna instructs Esme, pointing to the pyramid-roof above their heads. “That’s your dare.” 

Esme looks up and inhales sharply. Esme is a small girl. When they go to the amusement park she’s only allowed on the rides for little-little kids, and at Sunday school the teacher usually assumes she’s stumbled into the wrong room, and where she actually belongs is two doors down, with the kindergarteners. 

Finally Esme’s gaze lowers to the four girls. “I don’t think I can.”

“Sure you can,” Maddy counters. “We’ve all done it.” 

The other girls nod their confirmation. 

“I don’t think I can reach,” Esme explains. Also, the thought of climbing up there makes her nervous. What if she falls? What if she gets in trouble? 

“We’ll give you a boost,” Maddy says. “It’s actually pretty fun once you’re up there. You can see everything. Probably you won’t even want to get down.”

“It’s fun,” Anna agrees.

“I didn’t even want to get down when I did it,” Grace shares.

Esme chews on a strand of hair without realizing she’s doing this. “I don’t think I can reach,” she repeats, feeling stupid. Like a dummy.

“We’ll give you a boost,” Maddy repeats. “Don’t be boring.”

“Yeah,” Rachel says. “You can’t play with us again if you don’t do it.”

“We all did it,” Grace reminds her.

“It’s fun,” Anna reminds her.

Finally, Esme agrees. She certainly doesn't want these girls (especially Maddy Stevens) to think she is boring. She wants to have friends to play with.

They help Esme balance on the barrier of the jungle gym so she can reach the roof, boosting her so she can grasp it. Once she has it, they push her legs and butt the rest of the way up until she’s on the roof. Finally, breathless and red in the face, Esme is on top of the jungle gym tower, and she can see everything. Amazed, she exclaims, “Guys, I did it! I’m up here! It is fun!”

Being up so high is thrilling. Everything is fascinating from this angle. From up here, Esme feels greater than everyone, even the teachers. It's like being on the swings at the amusement park (one of the few rides Esme is allowed on) and looking down at the little people on the ground. Up here, they’re the little ones, not Esme.

When she looks back down each girl has taken stance by one of the beams that hold up the roof Esme is currently atop. Anna, Grace, and Rachel are all looking at Maddy, who is glaring up at Esme. Esme wonders if the sun is causing the glare, but when she looks up to check she sees that it has gone behind a cloud.

“Okay,” Esme calls. “I’m going to come down now.” 

Only, when she tries, she finds she can’t. 

Just like Esme was too small to climb onto the tower by herself, she proves too small to climb back down. This realization, as well as her honest inability to go elsewhere, has her frozen in place. 

“Guys,” she shouts, slightly frantic but trying not to show it. She doesn’t want them to think she’s a scaredy-cat. “I think I need help.”

“We won’t help you,” Maddy shouts back up at her, completely matter-of-fact. She is no longer glaring, only looking. Although Esme is above her, Maddy looks up at her the way one looks down at another. Maddy looks up at her like she is the saddest creature she has ever seen. However, she does not look as though she feels sorry, but rather like the sad creature she is looking up at is wholly insignificant and matters as much as the ants that begin collecting in the corner of the classroom around this time of the school year. 

“I need help,” Esme repeats, so Maddy can repeat herself and Esme can hear what she said correctly this time. 

Maddy only shakes her head.

Esme’s heart begins to beat really fast, and she gets the feeling that something isn’t right—something besides the obvious, which is that she’s stuck on the roof of the jungle gym and doesn’t know how she’ll get down. It’s becoming more and more difficult to keep holding onto the roof; her perspiring hands continue to slide, and her secondhand sneakers are sliding now, too. Maybe if they were new they would hold, but they are worn. In fact, the sole of the left one is beginning to peel back as Esme tries to force it to support her with durability it no longer has.

Esme continues to struggle and begins to cry. “Why?” she sobs. “Why won’t you help me?” (Now they’re going to think she’s a crybaby—the thought makes her cry harder.)

“Don’t be stupid,” Maddy says. “We want you to leave. You and your mom.”

Again Esme cries: “Why?”

“Because,” Maddy says, folding her arms over her tee shirt, which brandishes a sequin peace sign that changes colors when you run your hand over it. “You’re whores, and whores are evil. We don’t want evil people like you around here.”

“And you’re ugly,” Anna adds, which earns Maddy’s nod of approval. “You have weird hair. Like a little boy’s.”

Esme sniffles. “What’s that mean? What’s a whore?”

Maddy blinks, and the four girls share puzzled glances. Then Maddy furrows her brows and looks back to Esme. “It means you’re dirty and evil.”

“I’m not!” Esme cries, and the exertion causes her left foot to slide, the sole peeling back even more. She readjusts, which will only support her temporarily, but it's all she can do.

“Well, your mother is,” Maddy says. “And my mother says that whore mothers make whore daughters. Your mother used her dirty evil whore-ness to make my Dad do evil things with her, and now our family is all messed up.” Maddy pauses to clear her throat. “So you’re evil. And we won’t help you, because we won’t help evil people. That would make us evil and dirty like you, which we’re not.” 

Anna, Grace, and Rachel nod in support of this. The three girls appear slightly nervous, but they won’t say anything. It’s better to be nervous and down here than nervous and up there. 

Esme gasps as her sole breaks off completely and falls to the mulch below. She slides further down the tower. Now she’s at one of the four corners, the one Anna is guarding. She feels a glimmer of hope at an idea that occurs to her; if she uses the beam like a fireman’s pole, she can slide down and make it back onto the jungle gym safely.

Anna notices what she’s doing. “She’s going to come down!” she shouts, and the other three girls run to her corner.

“Now!” Maddy shouts, and Esme sees them reach into their pockets. She realizes they are full of stones only when the girls begin pelting them at her. 

Esme screams and tries to scramble back up the tower, now only using her right foot. Her screams are no cause for alarm, for there is plenty of children’s screaming to go around an elementary school playground. 

“I’m sorry,” Esme sobs. She isn’t sure exactly what she is sorry for, but her remorse is sincere. None of the girls below respond; none of the girls below seem to care. In fact, when she begins to slip again, they mistake it for trying to get down and pelt more stones at her. 

Just then the whistle signifying the end of recess is blown, and it is as if Esme never existed at all. All the children, the four girls below included, run to line up in front of their teachers. Headcounts are conducted; Esme’s teacher mistakenly counts one little boy twice. Meanwhile, Esme continues slipping. 

She has her hands spread as far as she possibly can, trying to use the stickiness of her palms to keep her from sliding further…still, she slides. Her right shoe is predominantly what is keeping her up, and her left foot is wholly incompetent with only a sock to cover it. However, she thinks if she can just wiggle her foot out of its sock she might be able to reposition herself so she can slide down one of the beams holding up the roof, like she was planning to do before. Slowly, carefully, she rubs the socked foot against the one wearing a shoe… and it’s working! The sock is coming off! And finally, hallelujah, it comes off completely. The sock falls to the ground below… and so does Esme. 

By the time the last recess of the day lets out, the sun has decided to make a reappearance. The breeze has carried on to rustle leaves several blocks away; what is left of the afternoon here at Salem Fields Elementary is sunshine, warmth, and plenty of pent up energy contained within the vessels of small children. As the teachers gather by the doors, chattering amongst one another, the children swarm the playground in an animalistic fashion.

It is perhaps two minutes into recess when the screaming begins. It starts with one child, then two, and soon enough the spirit of school children that inhabits the playground has been replaced by pure and frenzied terror. One of the teachers runs over to find the cause of the screaming. Not long after, that teacher is sobbing and gasping over a puddle of her own vomit, the whistle is blown, and everyone is being rushed inside.

The coroner arrives shortly after the police, joining an officer hovering over the taped-off scene. When he sees it for himself, he inhales sharply. 

The body of Esmerelda Lopez lies sprawled in the mulch, which might’ve granted her the slight mercy of softening the fall had she not landed the way she did. Esme, half barefoot, has one dislocated shoulder, several missing teeth, and one horrendously snapped neck. (It will later be discovered that she is covered in bruises, and suspected but never confirmed that the child was abused at home. Her mother will be questioned until she can no longer form words, only shake her head with her face buried in her hands. They didn’t pursue the mother as far as they would’ve had the child survived; if Mrs. Lopez was hurting the girl, it wasn’t as though she could do so any more.

After the body of Mrs. Lopez is discovered several weeks later (the process of consuming the bottle of aspirin is a thoughtful one; she takes the pills one at a time, mindful of each capsule as it goes down), Paul Stevens checks out of the motel he has been staying at. It all happens too quickly for the separation to ever become the subject of town gossip; it is good fortune that a distraction has prevented the small-town-scandal that would have otherwise been inevitable. Divorce, they agree, is off the table.

Maddy, Anna, Grace, and Rachel agree to forget there ever was an Esmerelda Lopez. She was relatively new, after all, and didn't have time to become properly acquainted with many children her own age.

Sometimes Maddy looks down at the spot where an unnamed girl once fell to her death, an area with mulch slightly fresher than the rest. Sometimes Maddy itches to know what it felt like, to have her neck snap. Sometimes an unnamed girl whispers to her that she can know: all she has to do is climb atop the pyramid roof, we've all done it, its fun, once she's up there she won't want to climb back down.